Ursuline Nuns in Galveston
Galveston, Galveston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In January 1847 seven nuns of the Ursuline Order, the first order of religious women in Texas, came to Galveston and established a convent and academy. The school opened with 25 students in February 1847, and quickly added more pupils, some of whom boarded. In addition to educating the youth of the area, the Ursuline nuns ministered to the community through numerous tribulations. During yellow fever epidemics of 1847, 1853, 1858, and 1868, the convent served as a hospital. Both Union and Confederate soldiers were treated by the nuns during the Civil War without regard for the sisters' personal safety. The convent and academy also provided shelter to the citizens of Galveston when hurricanes struck the area. During a hurricane in 1900 more than 1,000 people found shelter in the Ursuline building, the only structure standing near the Gulf area. The nuns rescued many people, at times risking their own lives. The nuns set about in purposeful activity following each trial. The Ursuline Academy continued until the 1960s when it became part of the Catholic school system. The sisters staffed the parochial schools. The number of Ursuline nuns dwindled until 1993 when the last sister left the area, signaling the end of an era. (1997)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In January 1847 seven Ursuline nuns — the first order of religious women in Texas — arrived in Galveston and opened a convent and academy, beginning with 25 pupils. For well over a century the sisters educated the island's youth while serving the wider community through catastrophe after catastrophe: their convent became a hospital during the yellow fever epidemics of 1847, 1853, 1858, and 1868, treated both Union and Confederate wounded during the Civil War, and sheltered more than a thousand people during the devastating 1900 hurricane. The last Ursuline sister left Galveston in 1993, closing an era of service that had lasted nearly 150 years.
Why it matters
The Ursulines' long ministry of teaching and heroic disaster relief reflects the outsized role Catholic sisters played in building schools, hospitals, and refuges across nineteenth-century America.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When seven Ursuline nuns stepped ashore at Galveston in January 1847, Texas was brand new to the United States, having joined the Union barely a year earlier. Galveston was its busiest port, a booming island city that served as the gateway through which people and goods poured into the young state.
It was also a dangerous place to live. Built on a low, exposed barrier island, Galveston sat in the path of Gulf hurricanes, and in an age before modern medicine it was repeatedly swept by epidemics of yellow fever. Life there could be prosperous one season and catastrophic the next.
Into this precarious world came a small group of Catholic sisters belonging to the Ursuline order — a teaching order with roots in sixteenth-century Italy, long devoted to the education of girls. They were the first order of religious women in Texas, and they came to build a school.
People & events
The nuns established a convent and academy, and the school opened with twenty-five students in February 1847. It grew quickly, some pupils boarding on the island, as the sisters set about their central mission of educating the community's young.
But teaching was only part of what they did. When yellow fever struck — as it did in 1847, 1853, 1858, and 1868 — the convent became a hospital, and the sisters nursed the sick at real risk to themselves. During the Civil War they cared for wounded soldiers of both the Union and the Confederacy alike, tending whoever was brought to them without regard for the uniform he wore or their own safety.
Their most famous hour came in the great hurricane of 1900, when their sturdy building stood as one of the only refuges near the Gulf shore. More than a thousand people sheltered inside, and the nuns helped rescue many, again putting themselves in danger. After each disaster, the sisters simply set to work rebuilding and carrying on. The academy endured until the 1960s, and the last Ursuline sister left the area in 1993, closing nearly a century and a half of service.
Its place in the American story
The Ursulines of Galveston are part of a much larger American story: the extraordinary role that Catholic sisters played in building the nation's schools, hospitals, and orphanages during the nineteenth century. Long before public institutions filled these needs, orders of women religious founded and staffed them, often on the rough edges of a growing country.
Their wartime nursing carries special weight. To treat wounded men of both sides, without asking which army they served, was an act that rose above the bitterest division in American history. It reflects a tradition of humanitarian care that helped lay the groundwork for modern nursing.
And their role in the 1900 hurricane connects this place to one of the deadliest natural disasters the United States has ever known, a storm that killed thousands and reshaped Galveston forever. That a convent school became a shelter in that catastrophe speaks to how deeply these institutions were woven into the life — and the survival — of the communities around them.
If you visit
This is a marker on Galveston Island, in a city that wears its history openly. Because it honors a long-vanished institution and the women who ran it, what you are really visiting is the memory of a presence that shaped the island for generations.
Let the setting do its work. Stand near the Gulf and think about what it meant for a low island city to face hurricanes and epidemics with so few defenses — and what it meant to have a place, and a group of women, you could run to when the water rose or the fever came. The story of more than a thousand people crowding into one building during the 1900 storm becomes far more vivid when you can feel how close the sea is.
Galveston offers a full day of history for the curious traveler, from its grand Victorian streets to its hurricane-haunted shoreline. Let this marker remind you that behind the island's famous architecture lies a quieter story of teaching and care that lasted nearly a hundred and fifty years.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related events
- · 1900 Galveston hurricane
- · Civil War
Themes & tags
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